


still a little hard to say

by MegLynn



Category: Rookie Blue
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-16
Updated: 2013-08-16
Packaged: 2017-12-23 15:22:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,618
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/928076
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MegLynn/pseuds/MegLynn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He's standing there, a hand full of keys and a reluctant look in his eyes. Post 3x11.</p>
            </blockquote>





	still a little hard to say

**Author's Note:**

> Written last year.
> 
> Disclaimer: I own nothing.

Home alone after today's long shift, Andy lets her shoulders slump, feeling the defeat of her broken relationship hit her full force again. Like it does every damn day. A month has not been long enough. Not when she has to see him almost everyday, work with him. Return his fucking keys.

She throws her bag to the side of her couch as she settles on it. Lost in her pathetic thoughts, her eyes sting, a feeling she's become familiar with these few weeks. Her hands feel too soft as she presses her palms to her eyes. Her head sort of shakes as she does, like it feels it's impossible to still be this upset.

She wishes that ridiculous book her mother gave her was helpful. She appreciated Nick's efforts today, but it didn't change the fact that it still hurt to see Sam, that she still stupidly misses him and that she can't stand it when he talks to her, whether it's to ask her how she's doing or to berate her.

And while grateful to Nick for being her "break up buddy", she can't even lie to herself that seeing him leave with Gail didn't sting a little. She hates thinking about how Sam would give her a ride everyday. Hell, he used to give her rides before they were even together. And now, thinking of these last few years, she has no idea if they can get any of that back. A part of her desperately hopes for it, but another part of her, the angry, bitter part, doesn't want to let her get close again.

Groaning at her thoughts, she seeks to break herself from her misery. She decides to put in a movie. A happy adventure one, for sure. It's while she's picking one out that there's a knock at her door. Confused since she wasn't expecting anyone, she doesn't do anything for a moment. There's more knocking though, so she puts the movies that she'd been deciding between down and starts towards her door. She hesitates, about to yell through the door, asking who's there, when she hears:

"Andy?"

It's _his_ voice, and she hesitates again before relenting and unlocking the door and opening it. He's standing there, a hand full of keys and a reluctant look in his eyes.

She clears her throat. "What are you doing here?"

He sighs. Looking down at the keys in his hand, he takes out the spare ones she gave back earlier. She has no idea what he's doing and he looks no closer to knowing what to say. She's ready to shut the door on him when his voice finally comes to him.

"I didn't really want these back." His voice is low and quiet and she thinks she smells some alcohol on him. This might not end well. Again.

"What were you expecting when you asked for them back?" She manages to keep some of her resentment at bay with the question.

"Andy -"

"No, no, I don't really want to do this. Why don't you go?" Her voice breaks with her request. She doesn't see any good coming from this, so she would really rather not try. She didn't think she was a quitter, but this hurt enough as it is.

He looks at her tiredly. Maybe waiting for her to shut the door or say something else. But she doesn't. A part of her wants to know what exactly he wants now.

"I don't know what I'm doing. I'm not, I'm not really dealing well with things. I don't know. I have freaking Diaz telling me to pull my shit together," he grinds his teeth. Probably thinking about how annoyed he was in that moment.

She stops. "Wait, Chris did what?" She had to ask, unbelieving that her friend would say anything of the sort to Sam.

"He didn't like my style. Thought I was out of line today." He scoffs and looks down. After a beat, his brow furrowed, he admits: "Maybe I was."

She looks at him, not really knowing what to say to that. Apparently breaking up with her has made him more open. Since that day, she's heard more of what is going on in that head of his then the whole time they were together.

Softly, she asks: "What did you want, Sam?"

He takes a moment. "I didn't really have anything to say to you earlier when I asked for these back." He holds up his spare keys. As if she didn't know what he was talking about. "I wanted to know how you were doing. I didn't have anything beyond that to say. I don't know why I asked for the keys."

She shakes her head. "Why are you doing this now?"

"What?"

"Why couldn't you talk to me like this before? Before Jerry?" She stumbles somewhat over the name.

He smirks, unkindly, "What, like you did?"

"That's not fair."

"Bull. I didn't share, I didn't talk. That's probably all true." Completely true, but she chooses not to interrupt. "But you weren't any better, Andy. You didn't want to talk about your fair share of issues."

She frowns at that, thinking she should shut the door on him. Instead, she opens her door wider, silently telling him to come in. If they're going to have it out, may as well get out of her hallway. He comes in, but doesn't move too far into her apartment. When she closes her door, he's closer then she thought. He still smells the same, even with the slight stench of alcohol. She moves away from her entrance, from him, wanting as clear a head as possible to get through this.

She runs her hand through her hair. "Is that why you broke up with me?"

He stills. "I - no. No, Andy -"

"Then that's not really the point, is it? I had personal problems, my mother for one, that I didn't want to talk about. You, you had a problem with us and decided to let it go until you couldn't take it anymore and left me standing in the rain."

He flinches a little. "I wanted some time, Andy."

"You could have said so."

He looks her in the eye. "Did I really need to?" He asks so quietly.

She looks down. She can't deny that he was obvious in his quest for solitude. But she can't find her voice to say anything.

He continues, "It might not have been something you wanted, but I needed some space."

Not full of confidence, she feels the need to somewhat defend herself. "I didn't want you to deal with Jerry's loss alone."

He rubs his face. "I know." He looks like he wants to add something, but doesn't.

He puts his hands in his pockets, and just stands there. Both of them not moving, awkward, nothing else to say at the moment. She heads back to her couch, sitting down on it.

In a small voice, "Are we done?"

He doesn't say anything, so assuming he doesn't understand, she continues.

"It's just, I've been trying to move on, get over this. But if you want honesty from me, this isn't easy. I don't want to be angry or sad anymore, pretend that it's no big deal. I just -" She stops, trying to figure out exactly what she's saying or asking. She pauses too long and Sam jumps in.

"I don't know. It's not a fair answer, but I'm pretty tired too. I didn't want to leave you. I felt it was the right thing to do though." She looks over at him, sees him shrug. "At the time at least." Another pause. "I'm not perfect. You know that. I just followed my gut feeling."

"Right, your gut feeling which told you to get out." She nods, mostly to herself. Sam sighs.

"It - You know it was more then just Jerry dying, Andy. I tried to make that clear."

She shakes her head. "No, Sam, you did," she says gently. "I just - I guess I didn't know how bad off we were." She gets up from the couch as soon as she says this.

Telling herself, _screw a clear head,_ she grabs a beer from the fridge. She thinks for a moment before dismissing the idea of offering him one. He still has to drive himself home. She returns to her couch.

He does that thing again, like he wants to say something and thinks better of it or whatever. She can't decide if he's censoring himself or he just can't figure out what he wants to say. If his head has been anything like hers these past weeks, she'd guess the latter.

She looks down at the drink in her hand, and asks again: "What are you doing here?"

He hasn't moved from his spot. But he turns to face her, stares at her a moment. She shifts under his gaze, uncomfortable with it now.

"You know, Callaghan called me an idiot." She snorts to herself. She sees a little smile on his face at hearing her.

"That's why you're here? I didn't tell him to call you an idiot. I could do that myself."

He looks down at his shoes before continuing. "No, I kept thinking about getting my keys back from you. I didn't want them back. I don't actually need them."

"Are you saying Luke was right?" He actually laughs at that. She joins him. This tight feeling in her chest that she was used to by now, she's surprised by it lessening with his laugh. It makes her feel like she can breathe better.

He gets quiet again. Still unmoving, his eyes are on her again. It's how he looked at her before.

"I'm saying, I think we should talk."

She looks away from him, thinking it over. A month ago, she wouldn't have hesitated. But now she has to consider. She has been working to get over him, to move on. Maybe it's too late. Maybe it should be.

But he's here.

She gestures to her kitchen. "Grab a drink. This could take a while."

She finishes off her beer by the time he makes it back to her couch. He hands her a second one and she stares at it as he sits.

Weirdly, it comforts her, the fact that Sam knew to grab another for her. She glances over at him and he sits down, amused to see him unnerved. She wonders to herself if he's ever had to really work at a relationship before.

"So, you wanna go first?"

\----

They sit there in silence for a while.

She thinks Sam's putting his thoughts together, because apparently a month isn't long enough to have already done that. He leans forward to put his beer down, along with the spare keys. He puts his own in his pocket. She looks at him when he sits back, but he ignores her for the moment.

Another minute and she's finally sick with the quiet, she thinks to hell with it and comes out with: "Do you miss me?"

He sighs and rubs the back of his head. "Yeah, Andy, I do."

He doesn't say anything else, but he finally turns to her when she puts her own drink down. Well, maybe she slams it down just a bit.

"I need to know that you want to be here, Sam. That you want to talk to me. I assumed you wanted to make things between us work, but if that's not the case -"

"It is. I just don't know where to start."

She counters, "And I do?"

He meets her eye when she asks. She keeps wondering if this is worth the fight but she can't help but doubt it. She wonders if Sam does too.

"Up here," he points to his head, "it's been a mess. I, I haven't been in the game since before we lost Jerry. I don't really know what I'm thinking half the time anymore." His gaze drifts away from her, staring at the wall just over her shoulder now.

"Since we've been together, you mean?"

He stops, then shakes his head. "I'm not blaming you. My mess, that's not on you."

"I didn't say otherwise, but you did heap some responsibility on me earlier." She sighs to herself softly, already knowing they won't get anywhere if she keeps accusing him.

He rubs his legs in frustration. "The time I needed after Jerry died, how angry I was, at you, at everything, that wasn't your fault. But I'm not going to act like things were perfect before."

Taken aback slightly, all she can say is "Obviously."

She gets up, not able to sit there any longer. She wants another drink but decides against it, and instead leans on her counter.

She thinks it over, what he said now and earlier. "We never really talked, did we?"

"We don't like sharing, I guess."

Angry at his lightly worded answer, "But that's something we could have worked on! Instead, you decided that I fuck with your head and left."

Annoyed now as well, Sam stands up to face her. "That's - I never said that."

"As good as."

"Andy -"

"Come on Sam, you said it. You haven't been yourself." She loses steam and continues in a small voice, "And you know what? I haven't been as blind to it, I just figured we'd have time to work through it."

"I -" He pauses. She can only imagine what is going on in his head. She never really thought the mystery of Sam Swarek was one that would hurt them like this.

She could be honest with herself at this point, she knew she could be evasive. Her mother being her biggest sore spot. But she felt like whatever it was that made Sam so reluctant to share himself has been their biggest obstacle since they started.

"I've never been good at this," he finally continues. "Relationships. I'm barely able to keep one up with my sister, and she's all the family I've got. I don't know how to be here and say anything other then I'm sorry." Sam stares at her, trying to tell her where he's coming from. And she knows, she just doesn't know where they can go from here. He looks away after a moment, stuffing his hands in his pockets.

"It takes more then that -"

"I know," he jumps in defensively.

She runs a hand through her hair again. "Did you like being with me?" It sounds childish coming out, but she doesn't know how else to get this moving.

"Andy -"

"Just answer, please."

"Yes, you know I did," he glares at her a little, not knowing where she was going with this, or what her intent is."And you were happy, usually, weren't you?" Her fingertips tap lightly on her counter, she feels fidgety. She doesn't like standing still.

Huffing a breath, he gives a curt "Yes."

"But you weren't very confident about us, were you?" He stops, looks at her again.

"Were you?" He asks softly.

She wants to roll her eyes, not caring for him trying to turn the questions around on her. "A hell of a lot more then you were."

He still hasn't moved. She thinks now that maybe he asked her in return so that he could put a response together.

"I think I spent so much time worrying, thinking, about how we would work, that I didn't spend any time actually working on us."

She understands it, but at the same time, she can't get over that he didn't talk to her. Was she really so tight-lipped herself in their time together that he felt he couldn't?

She laughs a little at herself, moving back to the couch, flopping back on it. "We're really dumb."

He doesn't move towards the couch, but he smirks at her attitude.

"Yeah, maybe."

Quietly, she says, "I should have talked to you before, maybe pushed a little, when I felt there was something wrong."

"We wanted to ignore it." He sighs. "I wanted to ignore it."

"I didn't work so hard on us either, I guess."

She hesitates, not really sure she wants to ask her next question. She motions for him to come sit with her. He's momentarily surprised before coming over and settling in next to her. She curls up on her side, pulling her feet up beneath her, and turns her body towards him.

"We can save this for a later date, if you want, but what happened when Jerry died? I know you don't blame me, but I'm still not sure what happened that day when you, you know," she finishes awkwardly. It's a ridiculous feeling, but she can't help but feel this may be too soon to talk about.

He gives his hands in his lap attention for a moment before answering. "I don't know how to explain it. I felt like I did something wrong that day, when Jerry died. And all I could think about was the times I listened to you, followed you, against my own gut -"

"Because we were together?" She interjects gently, honestly asking.

"Yeah. I don't know." He shrugs as he pauses again. He laughs to himself, bitterly. "I don't know how to say what I'm thinking very well."

Now, she really does roll her eyes. "That's not true, you've let me know what you're thinking quite well before."

"I just mean -" He looks at her. "You know what I mean."

"Maybe. But what's so different between letting me know what you're thinking when you're angry and when you're not?"

He scoffs at her, rubbing his eyes. He really does look so tired. "It's just different."

She tilts her head, staring at him. "Is it because sharing your non-angry thoughts makes you feel vulnerable?"

He shakes his head at her, disbelieving. "Don't be my shrink, Andy."

She shrugs a shoulder. "But it's probably true. I feel like that sometimes. I mean, you're right, we suck at sharing. Maybe we're too independent. We wanted to be together, but what did we do to really make a life together?"

He leans back on the couch and tips his head back, eyes closed. He doesn't say anything for a while.

"A life together. I don't know if I ever thought about us like that." His voice is quiet, but it hits her hard anyway. She puts her feet down, still facing him.

"What exactly were you thinking then, when I told you I love you?"

He must have heard something in her voice (she thought she hid it well) because he immediately sits up, looks her in the eye. He starts to reach out to touch her, a hand on her back, but puts it down on his knee instead.

"Andy. I just - I don't make plans for the future. Thinking like that, thinking of a life together, I don't do that. I'm not trying to make light of us -"

"Did you take me seriously? Or did you think I was being silly when I told you?" She tried to let him talk but she wasn't really hearing him.

"Why would I think that? It - I liked hearing it." He ducks his head, like he's embarrassed at his admission. She'd find it endearing any other time, but right now she can't figure out whether to club some sense into him or just throw her arms around him and refuse to let go.

She breathes out, letting some of the tension in her shoulders go. "So, do you think we've gotten anywhere?"

He grins at her, "Totally." Sarcastic ass. But it gets a smile out of her anyway.

"Really, Andy, a life together, I wasn't trying to say that it sounded bad to me. It's just never how I looked at things before, with other women."

Her face scrunches up, "How many women?"

"What? Seriously?"

"I asked, didn't I?"

He shakes his head. "I'm not going to answer that."

She keeps looking at him sceptically. "Why not?"

"I shouldn't have said anything." He's gaping at her, not knowing where this is coming from. "Would you answer if I asked you?"

She taps her finger on her chin, "I don't know, ask me."

He rolls his eyes now, "Right, okay. How many guys?"

Without hesitation, "Serious relationships, probably four, five if you count Taylor, which I sometimes don't."

"Jesus." He puts his head in his hands.

"You asked," she grumbles.

"I thought you were joking. You weren't supposed to answer seriously." He throws his arms out, frustrated by this turn of conversation.

"Secretly, you wanted to know."

"Why do you -" He cuts off when she starts to laugh, a full-bellied one that she hasn't felt in a long time. It feels so good, she's almost afraid to stop.

She lets her laughter slow though when Sam takes her hand. Entwining their fingers, his grip is tight, like he thinks she might snatch it back. But she doesn't. Her heart's beating faster, harder now, and she knows it's not from her laughing.

"I think we can do this. Make this work." He pauses to make sure he's looking her in the eye. "I want to."

She hesitates slightly before nodding. "Me, too. It'll be harder now, after this month. You up for it?" She squeezes his hand as she asks.

"Yeah, I think I am." He returns the pressure.

She nods again. "Okay." She grins at him.

He reaches for his beer, having forgot about it earlier, and leans back again. She curls into her corner of the couch again, both of them getting comfortable, but not letting go.

"But seriously, how many women?"


End file.
